Breathe
by beautyofsorrow
Summary: Pre-season 5, post-invasion. Peter and Olivia look for their daughter.
1. Chapter 1

**Breathe**

_I closed my eyes and closed myself  
__and closed my world and never opened  
__up to anything  
__that could get me at all._

"_Extreme Ways," Moby_

* * *

The world is an onslaught of flashing faces around her, and she is helpless to stop it. Everything pulls her attention – the stutter of footsteps along the sidewalk, the encroaching darkness in the air, the flash of a paisley skirt on the corner by a fruit stand –

_The fruit stand. Her skirt._

"Peter!" she tugs his elbow and tries to go after her, after Etta, but he's reigning her in, a hand on her shoulder, moving up, his fingers fast and gentle on her neck. She yanks away. _Don't touch me. I have to find her. _"Peter, come on, I saw her. Please!"

But he's shaking his head, eyes dark against hers. "Olivia, she had brown hair. It's not Etta."

"They could have dyed it. I saw her, Peter." She runs a few steps ahead, shoving aside a shivering teenager, an old woman, the man in a trench coat she saw two blocks back. She can still see her, the girl, just her pink skirt, torn and muddied as she trips along the cracked sidewalk. _Etta_.

"Olivia." He catches her by the elbow again and pulls her back so that her knees buckle and she stumbles into his chest. She thrashes a little, but he pins her to him and won't let go. Twisting, she elbows him in the ribs, wrenches at the arms clasped tightly about her. "Olivia," he grunts, breath hot on her ear. "Olivia _stop_. It's not her."

"But Peter, what if it is, what if – "

"_Look_," he grinds out, and the brokenness in his voice makes her stop, listen, follow his command. Her eyes skim the crowd, jumping over black hats and bloody faces, raking the surface of the city's pain in search of her little girl.

"Peter, I don't – I don't see her. I lost her, you've got – "

"There, in front of the newsstand. No, look up."

And she sees then, why he stopped her, why it is not her little girl. The fight drains out of her and he loosens his hold. She sinks back, curls into him, a hand strangling his jacket. He smells of sweat and three days without a shower.

"Peter. The skirt. I thought – thought for sure it was her."

He cards his fingers through her hair, cradles the back of her head as she leans against him. "I know," he rasps, lips pressing to the crown of her head. "I know."

* * *

It starts to rain again, and they duck under a shop awning, huddling away from the dirty brown drops. It's crowded, though, and the awning is hardly more than a few strips of fabric fluttering in the wind.

"Let's go back to the house tonight, stock up on water – we can keep looking in the morning," Peter says. He reaches out to tangle his fingers in hers, gives them an encouraging shake. She nods mechanically, follows him out into the rain.

They walk four blocks before they find a bus that will stop for them, all the others crammed full of Observers or people loathe to brave the rain. Olivia follows Peter up the steps, pays the meager fare that suddenly seems so dear, thuds into the last empty seat.

_Etta._

She stares out the window as the city slides by, tries to catch sight of her little girl, but soon realizes that it's hopeless. Everything is a blur. Olivia covers her face, digs her elbows into her thighs. Her eyes ache in their sockets, temples throbbing with the sway of the bus as it lurches through the streets, carrying them away, away, away…

_Etta_.

She feels a hand squeeze the back of her neck, knows it's Peter.

"We'll find her, Olivia," he says. His voice is steady above her. "We'll find our little girl."

* * *

The bus wheezes to a stop and Olivia pushes to her feet. Peter follows, a hand shadowing the small of her back, but she remains just ahead of him, shoulders straight and fingers curling by her sides. It's still raining, and the house is a several blocks away. They walk in silence; beyond that, Olivia's only movement is to scrape the sodden hair from her eyes.

"It's worse than last time," Peter murmurs when they arrive. He stares grimly at the broken glass, disjointed shutters, the door swinging in the wind. Olivia just rakes her gaze across the destruction and hikes up the steps.

Inside, the house is in shambles. Drawers yanked out, furniture overturned, light fixtures dangling and electronics gutted. She takes it in with a flicker of her eyes.

"I'll check the pantry," Peter says, fingers brushing her arm as he passes. She jerks her head in a nod and heads for the stairs, careful not to run her hand along the splintered rail. The safe in their closet is still intact – she's grateful for that, at least. Inside is her extra piece, a box of bullets, the stack of cash that Peter had insisted they keep on hand. In their rush to find Etta, they'd forgotten to bring it with them the first time. _Lucky it's still here – _she can imagine Peter saying.

Olivia pulls everything out, pockets the money, roots around for a change of clothes. _Lucky has nothing to do with it_, she thinks, coming up with a pair of jeans and two shirts – one with sleeves, the other daubed with paint. Her shoes are nowhere to be found, and she silently thanks whatever shred of sanity made her grab her hiking boots that first time they returned, in the dead of night before anyone had had time to think past the Invasion. The flip flops she'd been wearing in the park that day would have been useless.

She scavenges a while longer, finding two towels, a blanket, three polos and a couple of Peter's old sweatshirts. Olivia rolls them all tightly and shoves them deep into her bag, fills the holes with the socks she was able to find, resettles her hairbrush, gloves, black beanie, and the two shirts on top, tugs out her empty water bottles so she'll remember to fill them. That done, she looks around. What they really need are raincoats, but those have disappeared, along with the umbrellas. They'll have to make do with their leather jackets, then.

When she's confident that the bedroom has nothing more to offer, Olivia shoulders the pack and leaves, avoiding Etta's room as she does. Downstairs again, she heads for the kitchen; Peter meets her halfway.

"Found these," he says, holding up a half-filled bag of pretzels and jar of peanut butter. "Also threw in some flour and sugar, because they left that. It's heavy, but I figured we could barter with it if we need to."

Olivia shakes her head, tilts her face up to the ceiling. Is this what their life has come to? Bartering with flour and sugar? and for what? Their daughter's life?

"Was the safe still there?"

She flicks her eyes to him. Nods. "I cleared it out." She tosses him the money and extra gun. "Also found some clothes and a blanket, couple towels."

"Does the shower work?"

"Haven't checked."

"Well, the pipes in the kitchen are okay, so we can at least fill up our bottles."

She nods, moves toward the sink.

"I'm gonna go check the shower," Peter says. Olivia listens to him crunch away, broken glass and splinters grinding against the wooden floor. She twists the tap and thinks of Etta sliding in sock feet on those same boards, little arms windmilling and giggles spilling out. Her knees buckle and she grips the counter, clamps her hand around a shard of glass instead. She cries out.

Peter comes running.

"Olivia? Oh, God, Olivia – "

"It's okay. I'm fine, Peter, it's just a lot of blood – " She winces and cradles the hand to her chest, curses when she realizes she's getting blood all over her clothes.

"You're not fine," he growls, yanking drawers out, pawing around for a towel that's not been tossed on the floor. "Damn!" The drawer slams shut. He rakes his hands through his hair, casts worried eyes on her.

The glass digs into her palm, sharp and fiery, slippery with her blood. "Try the laundry room," she whispers, words tense with pain. He nods, hurries down the hall. Alone, Olivia closes her eyes, bites her lip until she tastes blood. _Don't pull it out, Liv. Don't pull it out. You'll only make it worse –_

"Found one!"

She opens her eyes to see him loping towards her, dishcloth in hand. Etta had used it as a cape last week…

Peter reaches for her hand, fingers gentle, but it still hurts like hell. She sucks in a breath.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," he mutters, glancing up as he wraps the cloth loosely around the wound.

She bites her lip again and shakes her head.

"What did you do?" he asks. She knows he's trying to distract her, but it's not working. Her hand is on _fire_. And the bandage is only making it worse – "Liv?"

"I put my hand down."

He breathes a laugh. "You don't just put your hand down and end up with glass this deep into your skin."

She stays quiet, gritting her teeth against the pain. Even so, she almost throws up when he knots the bandage.

"You good?" he steadies her elbow.

Olivia pulls in a breath, pushes the bile down, along with all thoughts of the pain. "Yeah. I'm fine." She flashes him a smile, not quite meeting his eyes.

"Come on," he says, shouldering their packs. "We've gotta get you to a hospital."

"Peter – "

He shakes his head. "Uh-uh. I'm not gonna argue over this. You've got an inch of glass embedded in your hand, with another half-inch sticking out and nothing to sew it up with. We are going to a hospital."

She follows wordlessly, knowing it would be useless to fight.


	2. Chapter 2

The emergency room is crowded, a groaning mass of humanity framed in broken limbs and crimson bandages. Peter shoulders the door open, holds it for a half dozen people, and then pulls Olivia inside, careful not to clobber her with their backpacks as he turns to follow. She skirts around him, cradling her injured hand, green eyes painfully wide in her bloodless face. Watching her, he knows that she's remembering their last trip here, the day of the Invasion, when they'd spent eight hours looking for Etta and come up empty-handed.

"C'mon," he murmurs, hand at the small of her back. She lets him propel her forward, but he can feel the hesitance in her step, see the slight hunch to her shoulders.

"Peter, I don't want to be here," she says suddenly, stopping with gaze frozen on the scene before them. Mothers whispering to screaming babies, husbands cradling their wives, children with battered faces and clinging to each other's fingers – Peter looks, and for an instant sees it as she must.

But she has glass in her hand, and there's no way he's letting her walk out of here without stitches. They have to do this.

"The line's right over there," he says, hand at her elbow.

She's shaking her head now, lips pressed together as she tries to back away. "No. No, Peter – "

"You're gonna be fine," he says, and that calms her down a little, the echo of Charlie's words from her past. He watches her for a moment longer, sees her battling for control. Losing their daughter has utterly wrecked her.

"Olivia?"

She pulls in a breath, nods a few times.

"Okay. Okay let's go," he says, and moves forward.

Despite his best efforts to clear a path for them, there are a lot of people, and Peter hears Olivia gasp in pain as people jostle past her. Once, she even curls into him, shielding her hand from the flow of sudden limbs.

Finally, they secure a spot in line, and Peter adjusts the packs so they aren't digging into his shoulders.

"Looks like we're gonna be here a while," he sighs, eyes on the triage nurse and her distant desk. There are at least twenty people ahead of them, some of them alone, others barely able to stand, even with the help of their companions.

He shrugs under the weight of the backpacks, looks over at Olivia. She's staring at the wall behind him, eyes vacant and hand cradled to her middle. Her blonde hair hangs in wet weeds around her face, dirty from three days without a shower and sleeping on the streets. He can tell by the cant of her body that she's exhausted, bound to collapse if he doesn't get her to a chair, and soon.

"When's the last time you ate?" he asks.

She shakes her head. Come to think of it, he hasn't eaten, either. Not since… he can't even remember. Yesterday? two days ago? It all runs together. And they're both running on three hours' sleep.

"Peter – " She sways, clutching his jacket instinctively.

He catches her, heart pounding. "Damn it, Olivia, you need to sit down." He can feel her muscles trembling as she leans against him, forehead pressed to his shoulder.

"No empty seats," she mumbles. And she's right; they're all full.

"Here – " he lowers her to the floor, makes sure her back is against the wall before he stands up and shrugs out of his pack. Pulling out a water bottle, he crouches down, nudges her head up from her knees. "Drink."

She takes the bottle, manages a couple sips before shaking her head again. "I can't. My stomach – "

"Uh-uh." He pushes the bottle back into her hand. "Keep drinking it. I don't care if it takes you an hour – you need the water, Olivia."

He stands again, ending the conversation, and slings the bag back onto his shoulder. What she really needs is a hearty meal and rest, but that's not going to happen. At least, not with this line. Peter looks at his watch. Ten minutes, and they still haven't moved.

"It's gonna be a while," a voice gruffs behind him. Peter turns.

Black eyes meet his gaze, beady and bright, like a crow's. "I'm sorry?"

The man shifts his booted feet and gestures to Peter's wrist. "Saw you lookin' at your watch. It's gonna be a while yet – at least an hour, maybe more."

"Yeah, I figured that," Peter says, trying to conceal his dislike.

"That your wife?" Crow man jerks a nod toward Olivia.

"Yes."

He raises his eyebrows, working his jaw appreciatively. "She's mighty pretty."

Peter's cheeks flush. "Yeah, yeah she is, and I'll thank you to keep your eyes off her!"

"Whoa, easy, Old Yeller," the man chuckles, hands raised. "All I'm sayin' is, you'd better watch out. Times like these bring out the worst in people, and I'd hate to see anything happen to a pretty flower like that."

Peter grits his teeth and feels the skin pulling taut across his knuckles. "Why are you even here?" he spits out. As far as he can tell, there's nothing wrong with the guy, except for an extreme case of perversion.

"Cut my hand a few days back," he replies, wagging it up next to his head. "I think it's infected; thought I'd get the doc to check me out."

_Small wonder_, Peter thinks. The bandage is filthy. And judging by the expression on the man's face, so is his mind. Peter flexes his fingers a few times. He should really punch him. In fact, he wants nothing more than to slug the guy, knock him out cold and –

"Peter."

Olivia's voice is quiet, steely. Peter looks down, sees her staring up at him. He opens his mouth to argue, but she silences him with a single shake of her head. _Don't_.

He clenches his jaw but loosens the fists, straightens as he turns to face the front of the line once more. Behind him, crow man chuckles, rocking on his feet a bit – Peter can hear his boot heels clicking on the linoleum – and the sound almost makes him lose what little control he has left. But suddenly Olivia's hand is around his ankle, squeezing tight, and he relaxes, forces himself to breathe deeply through his nose.

_Focus, Bishop. You'll never find Etta if you get arrested for rioting._

And Olivia. Olivia still has glass in her hand.

He darts his eyes back to her, sees her knees drawn up and spine flush with the wall. Her head is bowed again, but he can see she's been drinking the water; the bottle's only half-full now. Good. She needs to stay hydrated.

"Sir? Sir, are you in line?"

Peter looks up to see a nurse standing in front of him, arms folded and head tilted to catch his eyes, like he's some deranged patient or something. He blinks.

"Uh. Yeah. I mean, yes. I'm in line."

"Your name?"

"Peter Bishop."

"Okay, Mr. Bishop, may I ask what's wrong?" Peter notices her clipboard then, pen poised to take notes.

"It's my wife, actually. Olivia. She's got a shard of glass in her hand."

The nurse looks up. Darts her gaze around. Peter gestures to the floor, and she raises her eyebrows.

"Ma'am, unless your injury prevents it, I'm going to have to ask that you stand up."

"She's dehydrated," Peter explains. "She's down there so she won't pass out."

"I understand, Mr. Bishop, but she still needs to stand up. She's blocking the line."

"This line hasn't moved in fifteen minutes!"

"Mr. Bishop, I assure you, we're moving as fast as we can. And I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"_What_?"

"We're asking that all uninjured persons leave the building to provide room for our patients. And since your wife is obviously not a minor, unless she's unconscious or in critical condition, I'm afraid you'll have to leave."

"Look, I don't care how many people you have in here – I am not leaving my wife," Peter grits out. The nurse flicks her gaze from his face to his fist and back, but stands her ground.

"Sir, you need to leave."

"I told you – "

"Peter," Olivia murmurs, and he realizes she's standing, features strained, but she's there. On her feet, beside him. Not passing out.

The nurse flattens her lips.

"Go," Olivia says, and shoves him forward. "Wait outside and I'll find you when I'm done."

"Olivia – "

"I'm _fine_."

He stares at her, a muscle working in his jaw. She stares back, and he can see that she's not about to back down. "Okay," he agrees. "I'll see you when they're done."

She nods, lips tight, and he goes.


	3. Chapter 3

She's really not fine. She only told him that to get him out of here before he caused a scene, brought the whole hospital down around them. In truth, her hand's on fire, her head is spinning, and just thinking about the water bottle in her hand makes her want to puke.

But it worked – Peter's leaving.

Olivia waits until he's out the door before she slumps against the wall, eyes slamming shut on the tilt-a-whirl world around her. The trauma nurse has moved on to Mr. Cowboy Boots, the one who's spent the past ten minutes either leering at her or antagonizing her husband, and Olivia hopes the nurse kicks him out. But of course, there's no such thing as luck, and Cowboy Boots stays. He doesn't bother her, though. So at least there's that.

For the next ten minutes, Olivia focuses on staying upright, breathing through her nose, downing another sip of water even though her stomach rolls beneath it. She keeps her eyes fastened on the desk as the line inches forward. _Just a little bit longer._

At last, the elderly couple in front of her shuffles away, and the triage nurse glances up.

"Oh, thank God, a live one," she breathes. Cramming loose hair back into her bun, the nurse reaches for a clipboard and slides it across the desk, firing instructions all the way. "Pen's on top; don't walk off with it or I _will_ send security after you. When you're done, bring the form back to me and retake your seat."

Olivia lifts her arm and settles it gingerly on the counter. "I uh… I'm right-handed." She smiles apologetically.

The nurse pauses, drops her eyes to the awkward, bloody bandage that is Olivia's hand. Mutters under her breath. "Sorry! Sorry. Shouldn't have said that," she rushes, scraping the clipboard back to her side of the desk. "It's been a long day."

Olivia flashes her another smile as she tucks her hair behind her ear. Grabbing a pen, the nurse clears her throat.

"Name?"

"Olivia Dunham."

"Date of birth?"

"06/07/78."

"Address?" The nurse glances up.

Olivia shakes her head, twisting her lips a little. "It's… complicated."

"Wherever you lived a couple weeks ago will be fine," the nurse says, her voice softening.

Olivia nods and rattles off the address, followed by her phone number and work information. Name-dropping the FBI earns her another look, this one of mild admiration, but Olivia's too tired to care.

"Person to contact in case of emergency?" the nurse asks, recovering.

"Peter Bishop," Olivia answers, and spells it out just in case. Then she gives his cell number, even though the towers have been down for days.

"And your relation to the contact?"

"He's my husband."

The nurse writes that down, and Olivia sees the woman's eyes jump to the top of the page, back to the "last name" box and the distinctive _Dunham_ printed there. Olivia stays quiet, not offering an explanation (it had just been easier, keeping her old name) and the nurse doesn't ask for one.

"Nature and extent of your injury?"

"There's a piece of glass embedded in the heel of my right hand. I'm not sure how deeply – it bled a lot."

The nurse writes that down. "Okay, and just to clarify – the glass is still in your hand? You didn't take it out?"

Olivia shakes her head. "No, it's still there."

Finally, all that's left is her driver's license and insurance card. Olivia hands these over, having dug them out of her pocket several minutes ago, and waits as the nurse completes the form.

"Okay, Ms. Dunham," the nurse says smoothly, tugging the paper free of the clipboard and setting it aside, "if you can just take a seat over there, a doctor will be with you as soon as possible." Olivia flashes a grateful smile and collects her ID and insurance card, then takes a deep breath and turns to face the waiting room.

It's emptied a lot since the hospital staff separated the patients from the excess family members, but there are still around fifty people waiting to be seen. Olivia surveys the room, sees that there's only one empty chair left, in the back, against the wall. Dodging an empty wheelchair and sudden feet thrust in her path, she snags it, biting back a moan of relief as her muscles relax. The fire in her hand dwindled to a throb a while ago, but the adrenaline and blood loss have taken their toll. Much longer on her feet, and she would've collapsed.

"Long day?" a voice beside her asks.

Olivia huffs a laugh. "You could say that," she admits, turning to face the speaker.

He smiles, chocolate skin wrinkling at the corners of his eyes. Looking at him, Olivia is suddenly reminded of Broyles, albeit an older, grayer, more mellowed version of him. Maybe in twenty years… Her heart twists, and she ducks her head.

"My name's James. James Cooper." He shifts to face her.

"Cooper," Olivia muses. "Like James Fenimore?"

The old man laughs, cradling his ribs as he does. "No, no I'm afraid not," he says at last, laughter fading first to chuckles and then a smile. He shakes his head. "I'm not much of a writer. Too impatient."

"Well, it's nice to meet you anyway, Mr. Cooper."

He waves a pink-palmed hand at her. "Oh, please, call me James. I haven't been Mr. Cooper since I retired."

Olivia smiles. "Okay. James it is." She pauses, bites her lip. What could it hurt? "I'm Olivia. I'd offer to shake your hand, but I'm a little impaired at the moment."

James drops his gaze to her bandage and winces. "Ouch. How'd you manage that?"

"Supply run to what used to be my house," Olivia says, surprised to hear herself opening up. "I was filling our water bottles and didn't pay attention to all the glass on the counter."

"Our?" James' gaze fastens on her wedding ring. "You're married then."

She nods.

"You two have any kids?"

The breath slams out of her. Olivia opens her mouth, closes it. She presses a hand to her lips, knuckles pinning the soft flesh to her teeth, and the pain helps her concentrate. She takes a shaky breath. "Um… yeah. We have… a daughter," she finally manages.

James studies her for a moment, slides a hand across the hunched sea that is her back. "You got separated in the invasion."

Olivia nods. Her eyes are burning, and the pain in her glass-gouged hand has flared up her arm and into her chest, mingling with the ache that is losing her daughter. "We're uh, we're looking for her," she sniffs, swiping a hand under her nose. "Peter and I."

She laughs humorlessly, gestures to the rest of the room. "This isn't the first time I've been here. We spent the first eight hours of Saturday combing the place, throwing our weight around as the FBI. Not that it did any good."

She can feel James' eyes on her like a warm blanket, his broad hand sheltering the wings of her shoulder blades. Why she's telling him all this, she doesn't know.

"I'm sorry," she says suddenly, voice thick in her throat. "You must think I'm a mess."

James hums deep in his chest, more of a rumble really, and it vibrates out into her, along her shoulders and down her spine. "Not a bit," he firms. "I think you're a mother in search of her child."

Olivia darts a look at him. "Thank you," she whispers. _Thank you._

They fall quiet, and Olivia pulls herself together, lets the steady throb that is her hand tether her to the present. When she trusts herself enough to speak, she turns to James and asks,

"So what about you – why are you here?"

James smiles and shakes his head, white teeth flashing in the fluorescent light. "I'm an old, old man who tottered into a riot and was lucky enough to make it out with a couple bruised ribs and a busted head."

Olivia's brow dips. She looks, and yes, yes she can see it now. The cut is dark and ugly on his temple, blood sharp against the salt-and-pepper of his hairline. How had she missed it?

And riots? She knows it's been bad, these six days since the Observers took over, but in the panic of searching for Etta, everything else has turned to haze around her. Cracked sidewalks and looted houses are just reminders that her daughter is out there _alone_ somewhere, not indications that the world is unraveling.

"How bad was it?" she asks, swallowing past the tightness in her throat.

James laces his fingers together, lets them hang between his knees. "I wouldn't be surprised if three or four people died," he says quietly. "This was the third riot."

"In six days?"

He nods. "And that's just here."

Her eyes slide closed against the gravity of it. "I should be in New York."

James grunts; she startles a look at him.

"I may be old, but if there's one thing I've learned in my long and tired lifetime, it's that nothing, _nothing_, is more important than family. So you think about that, Ms. Olivia, the next time you dodge a riot or cut your hand on glass or wake up in the night missing your little girl. You may be some big important FBI lady somewhere in this world, but right here, right now, you are a mother. Don't let anything get in the way of that. Not one thing."

He says it with such conviction that she's left speechless. Before she can respond, a nurse has poked his head into the waiting room and is calling James' name, hurrying over to help him stand on his creaky, beat-up knees and assuring him that everything's going to be "just fine." Olivia opens her mouth to call out, to ask him to wait, please stop, but they're already hobbling away. Just before they reach the door, James turns to look over his shoulder, eyes bright and piercing, lips moving, and Olivia doesn't even have to lean forward to know what he's mouthing.

_Not one thing._

Not one thing, and then he's gone.


	4. Chapter 4

He's been waiting for two hours and is just about to go in and get her – hospital regulations be damned – when she walks out, tired and bedraggled, but there. Peter surges to his feet, relief washing through him, and she smiles wanly.

"They fixed you up?" he asks, running a hand down her arm.

She twists her wrist so he can see the bandage, clean and white against her skin. "Four stitches. Good as new."

He pulls her into a hug then, crushing her to him. "I missed you," he whispers, and she nods against his chest. _Thank God_, he thinks, if there even is a God out there. Thank God that she hasn't cut him off, pulled into herself to bear it all.

"Let's head back to the house," he says, pulling back. "We'll camp out there for the night, take showers, regroup – like we'd planned originally. We can booby trap the doors to make sure we'll hear the looters coming."

Olivia half-smiles, shakes her head. "As if they aren't booby trapped enough already?"

"Touché." He laughs.

"Come on," she says, curling her fingers around his. "It'll be dark soon."

They go, leaving the hospital and its sea of patients behind. The nearest bus stop is a block away, and they've walked half of it before Peter remembers. "Wait – I've got something for you," he mutters, stopping so he can rummage through their bags.

Olivia turns, sees him wrangling the backpacks and takes ones, ignoring his protests.

"I'm fine, Peter. They told me to eat a big dinner with protein and drink a lot of liquids." She dangles an empty bottle before his eyes. "I think I've got the liquids under control."

"And here's the protein – or some of it," Peter says, finally finding what he seeks. "Here, eat these." He presents them with a flourish.

Olivia takes the package of peanut butter crackers, smiling sadly as she does. "What did you have to do for these?"

"Just eat," he says, slinging the bag back over his shoulder. "I'll give you the rest at the house."

"The rest? Peter – "

But he just waves his hand and walks past her, leaving her little choice but to follow. Olivia falls in beside him, and after a brief moment, he hears the crinkle of cellophane as she opens the crackers. He smiles.

They make it to the bus stop, and there are about ten people waiting in front of them. Peter hitches the backpack higher on his shoulders and hopes the bus is empty. He feels a poke at his elbow, turns to see Olivia holding out the crackers. There are three left – half the package. He shakes his head.

"Uh-uh. Those are for you. Eat."

She takes one, crams it in her mouth, chews. Swallows. Raises an eyebrow. _Satisfied?_ Peter rolls his eyes and takes the remaining two crackers, eating them slowly to make them last.

The bus comes, and they squeeze in, Peter taking a window seat and Olivia the aisle. The doors close and they lurch forward. Her shoulder knocks into his and he glances over at her, flashes a smile. Her lips twitch upward before she drops her gaze. He returns his to the window, and a few seconds later, feels cool fingers twine through his. Peter sneaks a look at her as they jostle through the streets, wondering what happened in the hospital to make her this way. It's like she's been cracked wide open and exposed to hope.

_ Thank God_, he thinks again, and this time it's almost a prayer.

* * *

"Shower or food first?" he asks when they get to the house.

"Shower. Definitely shower," Olivia groans. Peter laughs; she's already halfway to the bathroom.

"Hey, so I know there's not much, but do you want me to eat while you shower and then we'll switch?" He peers around the bathroom door. She's bent over, sweeping the tub for broken glass, no doubt. Her backpack is on the floor, and she's already pulled out two towels and piled them on the toilet, along with what soap, shampoo, and conditioner they were able to salvage on their first trip back. "Olivia?"

"Will the hot water hold?" she asks.

"What?"

"The hot water," she repeats, straightening. "Will it hold for two showers?"

"Oh. Good point." He clears the rest of the doorframe. "Yeah, I don't know."

She tosses him a towel.

Peter catches it as it smacks into his chest. "What did they give you in there?" he asks, an amazed little laugh escaping him.

Olivia shrugs and avoids his eyes, concentrates on peeling off her layers without irritating the stitches in her hand.

"I'll be right back." He drops the towel in the sink and crunches out into the hallway, grabs a chair from the living room. It's missing a leg, but it'll work. He carries it back to the bathroom and shoulders the door shut, locking it and wedging the chair beneath the handle.

Olivia shoots him a look as he turns around.

"Now we won't have to worry about those looters," he explains, smiling to make light of the situation.

Olivia shakes her head, lopsided smile on her lips, and steps into the shower. Peter soon follows.

The water is hot – scalding hot – and it feels glorious against his dirt-caked skin. Olivia is on the far side of the shower, away from the faucet, and she's got her bandaged hand over her head, a sheepish grin on her face.

"I forgot – I can't get my stitches wet."

"How long?"

"Forty-eight hours."

"Want me to wash your hair?"

She hands him the shampoo.

* * *

They stand beneath the spray until the water runs cold, both with heads tilted back and eyes closed, soaking up the warmth as it pounds into them. Too soon, it's gone, and Peter toes out onto the tile, careful not to slip as he dries off. Olivia follows, wrapping a towel around her and wringing her hair out over the tub. Peter drops his bag on the toilet and rummages through it for a clean set of clothes, manages to find jeans and a T-shirt in the fast-waning light. Olivia reaches for her bag and hands him a sweatshirt; he smiles his thanks.

They dress, knocking into each other's knees and elbows in the tiny bathroom, grunting apologies as they go. Finally, Peter tugs the sweatshirt over his head and reaches for his shoes. Olivia is by the door, shimmying into her jeans, the last rays of the sunset sketching out her profile. He can count her ribs as she unfolds a shirt and slips it on, pulling it down to cover her thinning sides. Peter finishes lacing his boots and stands up, brushes a hand along the jut of her elbow as he steps behind her.

"I'm gonna get the food ready," he says, and nudges the chair free of the door handle.

Olivia glances at him in the mirror and nods, goes back to tugging her hair free of her shirt collar. "I'll be downstairs in a minute," she murmurs, and he slips out the doorway.

Outside, the hall is dark, the sun having finally dipped beneath the horizon. Peter picks his way to the stairs, operating mostly on memory, and makes it to the landing without incident. Downstairs, he clears a path to the kitchen and sweeps the vestiges of broken glass into the sink before hoisting his pack onto the counter. Miraculously, the stove light still works, so he flips that on and sets out their meager food stores.

He'd fought the crowds and made a grocery run while Olivia was in the ER, not that there'd been much left to buy. All the nonperishables had been bought or stolen within two days of the Invasion; what remained were bruised apples and stale, almost-molded bread, a few scrawny vegetables thrown into the mix. You never really realized how many people lived in a city like Boston until disaster struck. _That's why the houses were looted so quickly_, Peter muses. _Panic_.

He pulls out bread, two apples, and the withered stalks of celery he'd managed to snag amidst the chaos, surveys them grimly. He has no idea what they're going to do when the food runs out; all he knows is that they have to find Etta. Find Etta and get out of Boston.

Peter opens the bread and extracts four slices, hesitates, and then pulls out two more. It's going to spoil any day now, so they might as well eat it while it's only stale. He washes the apples and celery, digs around for a knife to lop off the leafy parts. That done, he uncaps the jar of peanut butter and slathers the celery with the brown goop, wishing he had raisins to stick on top. Then again, ants on a log is one of Etta's favorites, so maybe it's a good thing he doesn't have any right now.

Dinner is ready, but Olivia's nowhere to be seen. Peter frowns toward the stairwell and makes an executive decision. He packs in a matter of minutes, balancing the food in one hand – the apples he tucks beneath his arm – then reaches over and switches off the stove light. Better to let the looters think that the house is dead and empty than to tempt them with the prospect of fresh meat inside. He heads for the stairs via the path he made earlier, letting his eyes adjust as he goes.

It's quiet as he clears the last step, and the bathroom is empty (or at least he assumes so, because what little light that had filtered through the frosted window before is gone now). That leaves two rooms.

He heads for Etta's.

She's standing in the doorway, and he almost runs into her.

"Olivia?" He feels her arm brush his side. "You okay?"

She turns so her back is against the doorframe, head resting on the wood. His eyes have adjusted enough for him to see her profile now, the flex of her throat as she swallows.

"I brought dinner."

She stays quiet, absolutely still. The tension is fairly radiating off her.

"Liv? I need you to say something. C'mon, talk to m – "

"Shh. Don't talk." She touches a finger to his lips, leans against him. He breathes her in, clean and damp, so warm and solid and _there _against him.

"Olivia? Liv, what are you doing?"

She kisses him, softly at first, but quickly growing into more, and soon he's kissing back, wanting so badly to tangle his fingers in her wet, wet hair, but Etta –

"Etta," he pants, pulling back, catching the apples before they hit the floor. "We have to find Etta."

"We will."

"But we need to talk about our plan. We need to – "

"In the morning," she breathes. "I don't want to talk. Not right now."

"Olivia – "

"Please," she whispers, fingers clutching his shirt, and her voice is so broken, so cracked into glinting pieces around that one word, that he can't help it.

He gives in.


	5. Chapter 5

She is in a meadow with the grass sweet around her, blades prickling up between the threads of the blanket to poke into her elbows. Her sandaled feet stir the lazy air and Peter's head rests warm and heavy on her back, anchoring her to this, the ground, their present.

Her book splays out before her, draped in waving tendrils of her hair, and she's only half-reading, because she keeps getting distracted by the pink butterfly that's careening around, zigging in and out of her vision and even dive-bombing her nose once or twice. Giving up, she breathes a little chuckle and Peter shifts along her spine, tilts his head back to look at her.

"What?" he asks, and his voice rumbles into her, straight down to her belly.

"I knew I shouldn't have brought Dostoevsky to the park." Peter laughs and lifts his head; Olivia rolls onto her back and lets the book flop onto the blanket, watches as it, too, becomes a butterfly and darts away into the sun-drenched sky. Peter settles his head on her stomach, and she lets the weight of him pull her down, down into closed eyes and smiling lips and a perfect afternoon.

She awakes to a wasteland, and Peter is gone.

Olivia jumps up and there is ash over everything, raining down, just lumps of sandy gray as far as she can see. But no, no this can't be right, because she was just in the park and Peter was there, and besides, she has no ash on her clothes –

Except no, that is not true, because she does, she's covered with it, coughing through it, throat thick and aching with it. _Help, please help_ she thinks, but no one comes because they can't hear her, and why should they because there are no people, just ash, ash everywhere.

Now she is in a hospital, flat on her back and strapped to a gurney, with the lights and ceiling tiles blurring together and past and she can't see, she can't _see_, but oh, what is that –

"My hand, I cut my hand on a piece of glass," she rasps, struggling to sit up, but a face looms over her and palms are pushing her back down because she's not strapped in after all and she needs to _stay still_.

"It's all right, Ms. Dunham, you're fine. We're taking you to the delivery room right now – you and your baby are gonna be fine."

"My – my what?" she cries, but the face is gone and the straps are back and somewhere someone is telling her to push, but _what the hell?_ she's not even pregnant –

"Peter. Peter I'm pregnant," she's saying, and he's staring at her, mouth not-quite-open and then she almost-smiles and he really smiles and they're kissing, overwhelmed with the joy of this thing they've created, this perfect little soul,

and suddenly, she's back in the park, with Peter, on the blanket, trying to read Dostoevsky and failing because _that pink butterfly_, except it's not a butterfly, after all – it's her daughter, Etta, and she's bending down to pick a dandelion, long yellow curls tossing in the breeze. Olivia smiles, feels Peter shift and sit up, say something before he calls for Etta. She murmurs in reply, about a bath and never being easy, and a thought is tugging at her mind, a thought she should remember, except she doesn't want to remember, because this is perfect, so perfect, and –

Observers. In the park. Coming for her daughter.

"Etta!" she screams,

and her eyes fly open.

* * *

Olivia wakes, gasping, and with only a thin blanket to cover her. The moon is bright and spills in through the windows, glinting against the sweat slicking her arms. Her heart thunders. She blinks and presses her lips shut, swallows down the panic in her throat. A dream, it was just a dream.

Except it wasn't, because Etta is really gone, and their house is really gutted, and the whole world is really falling apart around them and _she doesn't know what to do_.

Olivia raises a hand to her forehead, pinches the bridge of her nose. She's trembling. Trembling, and she can't shake the image of Etta's face from her mind. The swinging pigtails, wrinkled brow, curled in shoulders and chubby fingers clutching the dandelion stalk.

_Etta_.

The pain in her chest is moving and breathing, a seething monster that threatens to swallow her from the inside out. Olivia rolls onto her side and curves in on herself, biting her knees as a way to ground herself in the present. She can't let this take over. She has to fight. She has to find her little girl.

_Etta._

Peter's breathing is slow and steady beside her, his arm tossed out in the deep of sleep. Olivia slips off the mattress and lets the blanket slither off her shoulders, shivers as the night air raises goose bumps along her skin. She reaches for her clothes, finds jeans and Peter's sweatshirt, pulls them on, and then socks and boots, too, because there's still glass everywhere and she really doesn't want another trip to the hospital in her future. Her hand is stiff and sore, the stitches tugging at her skin, so she doesn't bother with her hair. It's a mess, just like the rest of her.

Etta's room is awash with silver and shadows as she clears the threshold. Pink, cream, hints of purple – all the colors she knows are there have been swallowed by the night. Olivia slumps against the doorframe, shoulder jutting into the wood.

The looters penetrated here, too. Nothing was sacrosanct. Toys are strewn everywhere, books, clothes. A violated kind of mess, not a lived-in one.

She pushes off the doorframe and crouches amidst the clothes, pulls her fingers through the chaos. A shirt, pajamas, the overalls with the funny little cow patch on them. (Those were from Walter.) Here are Etta's favorite leggings, and over there her purple shirt, the one with the cartoon frog stamped on it. Olivia gathers them to her chest and rocks back on her heels, breathes deeply of their scent.

The memory of her daughter is still there, in them – the green apple of her shampoo, and the watermelon detangler, the syrup she'd spilled at breakfast Saturday morning. Olivia's fingers whiten around the clothing. She'd meant to wash it right away, keep the stain from setting, but then Peter had come down and suggested they go to the park, and she must have just thrown it in the hamper…

_Etta. Etta_, she thinks, knuckles digging into her lips. _Etta I miss you_. And she can almost feel her, then, standing at her feet with the light bouncing off her green eyes, fingers reaching out to touch her cheek.

"Mama, Mama why you cry?"

No. No. Olivia shakes her head. That's just her imagination speaking, conjuring her daughter and the words she would say. Because she knows her. She _knows_ her. She carried her around inside her for nine months and sang songs and dreamed dreams and ran awe-filled fingers over her belly every five minutes for weeks before she really started _believing_ that there was a baby in there, her baby, her daughter. And then, when she got here, when she finally arrived…

Olivia chokes back a sob.

Where is she now, Etta? Did the Observers take her? Or some well-meaning family? Did someone else's mother come along and see her little girl standing alone in the park with a dandelion stalk and take pity on her, scoop her up and carry her off because Olivia wasn't there to stop her, to gather Etta up in her own arms and carry her home to a bath and bedtime and butterfly kisses amidst giggles and _did you brush your teeth?_

Olivia lowers her knees and smooths the shirt across them, runs her fingers along the textured surface of the frog and its smile. Her wedding ring flashes in the moonlight, and she remembers how Etta loved to sit and play with it, twisting it around and around her finger while Olivia talked.

"Oh God," she whispers, balling her fists and tilting back into the moonlight. "Dear _God_ I want my daughter back."

Her confession hangs in the air, and no answer comes to save it.


	6. Chapter 6

He awakes to dawn poking its fingers in his eye. Peter blinks, scrubs a hand down his face. He is naked, in a bed with no sheets, and the puny blanket thrown across him is his only cover. What the –

Oh. Oh, yeah.

He rolls over, reaches out; meets empty space. Olivia is gone.

Peter sits up. The door is open, and the chair he'd used as a barricade stands neatly to the side, which means his wife is up, not kidnapped (though he doubts he would have slept through that). Peter hangs off the side of the bed and sees his clothes in a heap, and the packs are there too, both of them, so she hasn't taken off. Thank God for that. Her boots are gone, though, and so are her jeans, and – yes, his sweatshirt, too. Maybe she's downstairs? Probably eating. He sits up and looks at the nightstand, but the food is still there, bread stale and celery shriveled, but there, all of it. He grimaces, knows they'll eat it anyway.

Standing, Peter dresses and folds the blankets, then drops them to the floor beside their packs before ambling to the nightstand. He palms an apple, grabs two slices of bread. It is crusty against his fingers, and, when he rips into it, dry as dust.

_Ugh._ Peter shudders.

Gathering up the rest of the food, he heads for the stairs, but stops at the door to Etta's room.

"Olivia?"

He paces forward, kneels and sets the food on the edge of Etta's bed. Olivia is curled on the floor, in a pile of clothes and stuffed animals, sweatshirt bunched up around her neck. It makes her look small and defenseless, huddled amidst the chaos of their daughter's room.

"Liv?" he says again, shaking her shoulder. She groans and stirs, head lolling back. "Hey – it's morning. Time to wake up."

Olivia opens her eyes and blinks, stares at the ceiling for a moment before pushing into a sitting position. "Ugh, my head." She digs the heels of her hands into her eyes, jerks them back when the pressure hits her stitches. "Shit."

"I have ibuprofen in my bag – want me to get you some?"

She nods, pinching the bridge of her nose. Peter pushes to his feet and jogs back to the bedroom, digs around in his bag for the painkillers. Shaking three into his palm, he caps the bottle and jogs back.

"Here," he kneels back at her side. She takes the pills and tosses them back, grimacing as they stick in her throat.

"Sorry," Peter says. "I forgot to bring water."

Olivia shakes her head. "No. You're fine."

They fall silent. He looks at her, at the way his sweatshirt swallows her thin form, the tangle of her hair as it falls over her shoulder, pale curve of a tooth worrying her lip as she studies the room.

"What were you doing in here?" he asks, and his voice is soft.

Olivia turns, lips breaking apart. She shrugs, a single lift of her shoulder that tells him she's fighting to hold it together. "I wanted to be close to her," she whispers. It kills him.

"What time did you come in here?"

She shakes her head. "I don't know. Sometime after you fell asleep."

There's more. She's not telling him something.

"Liv – last night – "

"Don't. Please don't ask."

"I need to know why."

Olivia shakes her head and covers her face with her hands, this time heedless of her stitches. Her knees pull up and she hunches over them, hiding. It scares him, seeing her like this. So curled in on herself, so broken.

"Olivia? Liv, please." Peter curves his fingers around her wrists, pulls them back gently. "Tell me what's going on."

She sucks in a steadying breath and swipes a hand under her nose, presses her knuckles against her lips for a long moment. "I met a man in the hospital," she finally begins, staring at her feet. "In the ER, after you left. His name was James. He was… old. He had at least twenty years on Walter."

She plays with her bandage, running the edge of her nail along the gauze and back, scratch scratch scratch. "We started talking. He'd gotten caught in a riot, made it out with a head wound and bruised ribs. He joked about it, but it was bad, Peter. Really bad."

She pauses, stops messing with the bandage.

"He saw my wedding ring, and asked if we had any kids, and… oh, God, Peter, it hurt. It hurt so _much_."

He reaches out and cups her cheek. She leans into his touch, still staring at her feet, knees clasped to her chest.

"Just before they took him to an examination room, he turned to me and said that it didn't matter who I was anywhere else in the world. Right here, right now… I'm a mother. And that nothing should get in the way." She looks up at him, brow pinched, eyes glassy with tears. "Not one thing, Peter. That's what he said. Not one thing."

Her voice breaks on _thing_, and she surges to her feet. As she brushes past him, almost tripping in her haste, something falls from her hand. Peter picks it up, lets the purple fabric unroll to reveal the grinning frog, the long pink tongue, the unsuspecting fly. Etta's favorite shirt. _Etta's favorite shirt._

Peter clenches his fingers around the fabric, turns and leaps up after his wife. "Olivia – "

She's in the bathroom, dry heaving into the toilet. He stands in the doorway, helpless, the shirt dangling from his fingertips as she convulses on her knees. Finally, she slumps back against the wall, fingers still scraping her hair back, bandaged wrist coming up to press against her mouth.

"Olivia, what is going _on_?" he scrapes out, but as soon as it leaves his mouth, he knows it's a stupid question. The world has just been taken over by emotionless chalk-white _monsters_, that's what's going on. Cell towers are down, food is running out, the water supply will soon be compromised, if it hasn't been already, and they have no way of contacting their loved ones. And yet, none of this even matters, because they've just lost their _child_, and nothing – nothing – shakes him more deeply than this.

"Olivia," he says, and gets to the floor. Falls really, kneecaps cracking against the tile. Peter reaches out, because he needs this, needs to know that there's something _left_ of this life he once had, but when he tries to tip her chin up to look at him, she resists, shrinking back against the wall. Her brow is furrowed, lips twisted to hold back the sobs.

"I can't do this," she chokes, eyes terrified on his.

"Can't do _what_?"

"This! I just want it to _stop_, Peter! I can't. It's too much."

"What's too much? Talk to me, Olivia. I need to – "

"Stop it, Peter. Don't touch me." She twists away from him. "_Don't_."

"Okay. Okay." He stops. "But I need to know why. Why can't I touch you?"

"BecauseI don't want to feel anymore!" she shouts.


	7. Chapter 7

She says it, and watches his face crumble. Not so much crumble, though, as go blank. Blank, blank – slapped broadside with the board of her words, until all that's left is a bloodless slate that slowly, ever so slowly, creeps back to color.

Olivia surges to her feet, unable to watch it. She's weak; she's broken. There are all these little cracks in her, and the pain is pouring in; she can feel it pulling her under.

_Because I don't want to feel anymore!_ she'd shouted, and it is true, she doesn't. She doesn't want this monster inside her, writhing somewhere between her chest and belly, threatening to rip itself out if she lets her guard down for one second. She wants it gone. _Gone_.

But at the same time, it isn't true, because she _does_ want to feel it. Everything.

She stands over the sink and grips the counter, hard, because she needs to keep herself grounded, and right now the screaming of her stitched-up hand is working nicely, very nicely, indeed. The mirror is there, right in front of her, but she refuses to look into it, because she knows it will only make things worse. Look in the mirror, and she'll see herself for the failure she really is. Look in the mirror, and she'll see the mother who couldn't save her child, the wife who wouldn't love her husband. And why?

_Because I don't want to feel anymore._

"That's not what I meant," she says finally, still strangling the counter.

Peter stirs. "Then what exactly did you mean, Olivia?" And she can hear the anger in his voice. Oh, he is broken. So broken. She has devastated him.

What kind of monster has she become?

"I don't know," she whispers.

"You seem to be doing a lot of that lately," he grits. "_Not knowing_."

She turns, her back to the counter, leaning hard on her bandaged hand. "I'm sorry, Peter."

"You're sorry?" He barks a laugh, shakes his head and stands. "_That's_ what you have to say?"

"Well what do you want me to say?" she shoots back, cheeks flushing.

Peter crosses his arms, the scowl deepening on his face, in his eyes. "Gee, I don't know – maybe that you're still in this with me, that you want our daughter back as much as I do."

She swallows. "That's not fair."

"Oh, really," he scoffs, gesturing to the hallway, Etta's room. "Not fair? Let's talk about how you practically jumped me last night."

"I didn't jump you!"

"No? Then what was that? Because it sure felt like sex to me!"

Olivia drops her gaze, lips pressing together, a muscle jerking in her neck. "Well maybe it was _just sex_ to you," she says, voice low, "but I was trying to feel again."

A disbelieving laugh. "No. No," he mutters, hand coming up to his face. "You just got done telling me that you didn't _want_ to feel anymore. So which is it?" He raises his eyes to hers, gaze dark, like storm clouds.

She pushes off the counter and into the hallway, makes it five steps before he's jerking her to a stop.

"No way, Olivia. You are not walking away from me. Not without explaining yourself."

She whirls around. "I don't _know_, okay? I don't know what's going on inside me. It's like – it's like someone's ripped my heart out and replaced it with this – this _monster_, and I can't even breathe without it tearing into me."

She digs a hand into her hip and scrapes the other through her hair. "I see the color pink, and I think of her jacket; red shoes, and they're hers. I look at this house, and she's laughing, running all over the place in her cape and pajamas, and my knees buckle so that I have to grab the counter, but it's broken glass instead. And then I'm in the hospital, with children all around me, and their mothers, or _without_ their mothers, and it hurts so badly that I think I'm gonna die."

She steeples her fingers over her mouth and nose, splays them out again, eyes wide, burning. "Except I can't. It's Etta, Etta, Etta, all of I just – I want it to _stop_."

Her voice breaks on that last word, and Peter raises his eyes to the ceiling, throat convulsing in a swallow.

"You can't erase our daughter, Olivia."

_I wish I could. Oh God, forgive me, but I wish I could._ Her eyes slam shut against them, against the awful truth of the words, but it's too late; she thought them. She meant them.

There follows a long silence, in which she dies a thousand deaths, waiting for him to speak.

"Why, Olivia? Why last night?" he asks finally, and his barely-there voice burns into her, searing deep.

Oh God. Oh dear _God_. She can't do this.

_I was scared, Peter. I looked into her room and she wasn't there, and I just got so scared that I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. And then you came up, and all I wanted was to forget, for it to go back to normal, for time to reset itself, and for a split second I didn't even want our daughter back. And that scared me. _

_So I tried to forget._

"It doesn't matter," she says finally, opening her eyes. "It didn't work."

"What didn't work?"

"I said it doesn't matter. It won't happen again."

"Olivia – "

"Do you want to find Etta or not?" she asks, turning on him. Silence. Olivia holds his gaze for a long minute, and then shakes him off. "That's what I thought."

"You need to eat," he calls after her, voice harsh against her ears.

"I'll meet you in the kitchen," she says, and walks down the stairs.

* * *

She's at the sink, drinking water from her cupped hands and cursing herself for getting her stitches wet when he appears, hauling the packs and her T-shirt, their jackets. He stops a few feet away and holds something out to her.

It's her bra.

She blushes which is entirely irrational, considering what they did last night (and that they're married), but it's there, red stain on her cheeks, the stamp of one guilty. Olivia takes the bra, forcing herself to put it on right there instead of hiding like she wants to. _I'm not trying to seduce you_, she thinks, handing over his sweatshirt and hurrying into her tee, conscious of his eyes upon her. Tension glitters like shards of glass between them.

"We need to find the others," she says upon finishing.

"The others?" He's genuinely confused.

"Walter. And Astrid."

A muscle jerks in his jaw. He shakes his head. "Etta first."

Olivia turns back to the sink, tension knotting her shoulders. "Did it ever occur to you that Walter could help us find her?" she asks quietly.

"Did it ever occur to you that our daughter is out there _alone_ somewhere?"

She whips around. The line in his brow is deep, his face like thunder as he meets her stare. He speaks slowly, through gritted teeth.

"Etta. First."

"Peter, he's your father – "

"And I am hers!"

His shout hangs in the air, and they stand rigid, staring. Peter's face is flushed, his posture splayed before her like a wall. She can feel the ache in her jaw radiating into her temples and across her forehead, pounding over and over and over again.

_Etta_. _Etta Etta Etta_. And then,

_Walter_

_Astrid_

_Broyles_

_Etta._

"Okay," she relents, taking her jacket. "Etta first."


End file.
